Melvin Calvin Biography

Chemist, Scientist, Educator (1911–1997)

Melvin Calvin was an American biochemist who received the 1961 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his discovery of the chemical pathways of photosynthesis.

Synopsis

Melvin Calvin was born on April 8, 1911 in St. Paul, Minn. He received his doctorate from the University of Minnesota and began his Nobel Prize-winning work--using trace amounts of radioactive materials to map photosynthesis--in 1946. He designed the Laboratory of Chemical Biodynamics (renamed the Melvin Calvin Laboratory) which he directed until his retirement in 1980. Calvin died in 1997.

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